The Same Subject in Its Application to the Whole Path of Life
THE course of God’s providence in regard to his. own people is dark and inexplicable. The principles on wliicli it is conducted are secrets of God’s court: it is not wonderful that we should be ignorant of them. We are in darkness even with respect to the ends for which God is employing us. It is natural that many of the intermediate events should be contrary to our expectation. ‘Not more devious or unexpected were the successive journeyings of Israel in the desert than are the ways of the believer in his pilgrimage. It is enough for him to know that his way is not fortuitous, but that every step is directed by a Providence which has the same residence with the Grace from which he hopes for salvation — a Providence which consults and disposes for the falling of every hair.
In looking back on life, there is, perhaps, no Christian who does not acknowledge that his way has been such as to contravene all his expectations and purposes, and many of his wishes and fears. Yet there is no well-instructed believer who does not likewise admit, that the way has been a right way, and that the most adverse events are part of a wise, sovereign, and merciful arrangement. Ignorant as we are both of our own strength and our own weakness, of the work which the Master demands, the preparation which he would effect, and the dangers which he foresees as avraiting us, it would be the height of presumption for us to choose our own path. In our best hours, it is our consolation that those things which we cannot control are governed by One who loves us better than we love ourselves. Who would give the babbhng, puling infant a voice in the conduct of its little life? yet the comparison is all in our favour. The infant is wiser and mightier, when compared with the parent — need I say it? — than are we, when compared with God. The wonder is that v»e should ever dream of taking the direction of our own affairs. The mercy is that they are under the superintendence of Him who is infinitely able to govern and bless. The ravings of the wildest storm which threatens our vessel are regular parts of the plan, agreeably to which the Sovereign of nature and grace is conducting us towards a state of rest.
We shall now be led, first to contemplate the truth, that while man, through ignorance, cannot order his life, God does order it; and secondly to deduce the practical lessons which flow from this truth.
We can never see this world in its true light unless we consider it as a state of discipline — a condition through which we are passing to fit us for another. It belongs to such a state to be very different from a state of rest and accomplishment. Many things must necessarily pertain to it which are but for a season; many things which are not good in themselves, but good with relation to the end that is sought. To understand such a condition of discipline presupposes a knowledge of several particulars which are beyond the reach of human minds in their present state; for we must know, lii’st, what the end is for which the Supreme Governor is preparing us; then, the true state and character of our own souls, with all their peculiarities and defects, which make such a discipline necessary; and lastly, the suitableness of every particular of such discipline to produce the end desired. This, it needs but a little reflection to see, is far beyond our intellectual power. Especially is this seen when we take notice that the problem is disturbed and darkened by involving some of the most difficult and inscrutable questions, such as the origin of evil, the nature of spiritual temptation, the decrees of God, and how far his providence may be said to concur in the product of those acts which, so far as we are concerned, are sinful. And the reason why these inexplicable questions are connected with the subject is, that our discipline in this world includes not merely the outward dispensations of God’s providence, but the free act of creatures, ourselves and others, and these as well when they are evil as well as when they are good. It is the prerogative of God alone to deal with sin without contracting any taint. While he cannot be tempted to evil neither tempteth any man; and while to make God the author of sin is impious, it is, nevertheless, true, that sin is within the sphere of his providential arrangements; and his providence has such a reference to sin as to carry with it, as we have seen, a “bounding, and otherwise ordering and foreseeing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to his own holy ends, yet so as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God.”
The connection of this with our subject will be more apparent, if we consider that all our other trials are light and unimportant when compared with those which proceed from human freedom, that is, from the sins of ourselves and others. The direct visitations of God, in the storm, the pestilence, in wounds and sufferings and death, admit of more solace than those which flow from the unhallowed passions of men; and even these carry a less poignant sting than our own shameful neglects and transgressions, which wound the soul again and again, and keep us mourning as long as we are in the flesh. Yet even these are ordered in wisdom and benignity; and we take but a narrow view of Providence, and of our own way, unless we regard them as parts of a manifold dispensation, intended for our good.
When aged David lies under the rebukes of a vituperative foe, he exclaims: “So let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him. Curse David.” Not that the holy king would impute the sin to his Maker, but that he considers the wicked as God’s sword, and their free transgressions as overruled to god’s guidance. 65
effect his chastisement. It is the province of Jehovah to “bring good out of evil; but his method of doing so is among the darkest of his ways.
Still more painful is the doubt, when we are ourselves surprised by sin. Amidst the necessary and useful paroxysms of shame and grief which follow transo:ression, we do not find time or heart to turn our thoughts to this providential aspect of the subject. Yet it is not too much to say, that all our frailties, defects, and offences are so governed by the supreme Providence, as to work out our greater salvation, and the greater glory of divine grace. But here again, while the result is certain, we are absolutely incompetent to understand the means, and in this respect the way of man is not in himself Yie can only bow, and yield ourselves with implicit submission to the awful hand of that Providence which leadeth the blind by a way that they know not.
To say that a man is incompetent to direct his own way, is only to say, that in a tangled forest, full of pitfalls, a wanderer at midnight, without light, path or compass, is unable to choose his direction. In the pilgrimage of this world, we know not whither we are going, or what God intends to do with us. The pillar of cloud which guides us is absolutely independent of our disposal; yet we are bound to be governed by its motion and its rest. The spirit of the declaration is still in force: “At the commandment of the Lord the children of Israel journeyed and at the commandment of the Lord they pitched as long as the cloud abod(^ upon the tabernacle, they rested in their tents. Or whether it were two days* or a month, or a year, that the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of Israel abode in their tents, and journeyed not: but when it was taken up, they journeyed.” We must expect God’s signals, and those indications which are properly called the leadings of his providence. It is charged among the sins of Israel, that “they waited not for his counsel.” iit one time we find them disheartened by the rejDort of the syies, turning back in heart unto Egypt, weeping tears of vexation all night, and crying. Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! At another, they are on the opposite extreme, rushing upon the Amalekites and Canaanites, without command, and driven before them for their sins with great discomfiture. Our course is similar, when we idly attempt to force a way, in spite of Providence; when we repine at our lot, or violently endeavour, for reasons other than those of plain duty, to throw off the yoke which is laid upon us, or to break into new paths which our Leader has not ojDened. The folly of such endeavours is as great as its rebellion. The horizon of our ken is very limited. The circle which encloses the legitimate field of our planning and management is small indeed. Our way is hedged in more closely than we are apt to imagine; and the freedom with which we flatter ourselves is checked and controlled by arrangements beyond our knowleds’e and above our reach.
Our deplorable ignorance as to our own way in life, is particularly manifest when we consider that whole trains of events, such as give colour to the entire life, are often dependent on a trivial, unforeseen, and apparently casual occurrence. By turning down one street of a city, instead of another, a man may meet the person by whom the whole current of his after life shall be determined. That Joseph, rather than some other messenger, should have been sent to find his brethren at Shechem; that Ishmaelites on their camels should have come up in the nick of time, and carried him a slave into Egypt; that the wife of Potiphar should have become his enemy; and that he should have been thrown into prison, were all what we call fortuitous and unfortunate events. So far as his brethren were concerned, their machinations were malignant; yet were they all threads in that wonderful web of Providence which was partially unfolded in the four hundred years’ captivity, and more fully in the fortunes of the Jewish nation, and the plan of redemption. “As for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive.” It was no very important event, that the asses of Kish the Benjamite should have strayed; yet this fact gave Israel a king. It was as unimportant that youthful David should go to see his brothers at the camp in Elah; yet this led to the slaughter of Goliath, and a change of the dynasty The Ahithophels, Machiavellis, Richelieus, and Met- ‘■ernichs think otherwise. But the great Oxenstierna was right, when lie said, ‘’ See, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed!” In another sense, it is governed with infinite wisdom; but God’s. In his hand, a diamond necklace may cost a queen her head, and destroy a kingdom: a king, who lias been deliberately shot at again and again, may, by forbidding one banquet, close a dynasty. And every day of our lives events are taking place, of which, at the time, we make no account, but which, in God’s providence, are the pivots on which I’e solves our whole subsequent history. Yet the very smallness of these occurrences, as well as our ignorance of their bearings, would for ever prevent our arranging or ordering them.
Even of those things which, in a limited sense,’ may be said to be within our power, we are to a great degree ignorant whether they are good or evil, whether to be chosen or refused. It is true, even to a proverb, that what we consider prosperity and success, often results in lasting evil; and as true, that the highest earthly happiness results from events which at the time are considered disastrous. And this is more strikingly evinced, when we regard the moral consequences of such occurrences, and observe that prosperity injures the soul, and that the richest spiritual blessings are connected with suffering, disappointment, and defeat. Hovf would it be possible for us to choose or to refuse such things, if the question were left to our own forecast? Suppose, for example, that any man were to sit down to map out the course of future bfe for himself. Is it not almost cer-God’s (H iDANci:. 69
lain that Lis di’aiight v/oukl exclude all distressed’ and trials? Yet we know upon divir.e authority, that these are ansohitely necessary to the discipline of the heart, and the development or Christian character. But who could undei’take to insei-t them in due ineasui-e, and at the pro[)er points? AVhat human tongue would not falter in saying, At such a time I shall be laid on a bed of wasting: sickness. At such a time I shall be bereaved of a beloved child, or of an invaluable companion. Here I shall suffer contempt and calumny; and there I shall be vexed with indescribable temptations. How truly do we find it, that the way of man is not in himself!
What has been said is true, upon the just supposition, that man is incompetent to choose that course which is best for him: but even if we should grant him this competency, his case would be little altered, because he is able in but a slight degree to effect that which he may choose. Man knows not how much he can effect. Boast as we may of the power of human determination, the ordering of the events which concern us, is altogether out of ourselves. As we gaze with interest on a new-born babe, we can no more predict what shall be the tenor of its Iiistory, than we can declare, as we look into a mountain-spring, what the river shall be which is to issue from it. The stream may pursue a direct course to its termination, or it may turn and wander a thousand times. It may go noiselessly through sandy plains of ease, and stagnate in broad shallows of
70 COXSOLATIOlSr.
carnal slotb, or it may force its way through cliffg of opposition, dash over cataracts of passion, and reach the ocean after a way of perpetual turbulence. The greatest events of our lives, are those in which we have no option. It is not left to man’s determination in what age of -the world he shall be born; whether in Christian or in savage land; whether poor or rich, whether feeble or hardy; whether a genius or a fool; whether he shall enjoy parental care, or be an orphan; whether he shall dwell in a realm of peace, or have his whole character and actions moulded by revolution and war. And we might carry out the enumeration to a thousand particulars, each bearing directly on his happiness.
It would seem to be the intention of God, that the lives of men should differ as much as their countenances, and that each should be checkered by the most unexpected occurrences. The beautiful biographies of the Old Testament reveal to us the hand of God, leading the patriarchs and other holy men along a perpetual pilgrimage, in which they are as I’eally without self-direction as was Israel in the wilderness. Surely the way of Abram was not in himself, when God called him out of the East, led him into Canaan, and into Egypt, and through a long life gave him no inheritance, no, not so much as to set his foot on. The wanderings of Jacob were as little under his own control. When the twin children, Esau and Jacob, were born, no aspect of the heavens could have shown that their course of life should run in streams so divergent and unlike. Mogod’s guidance. 71
ses, and Gideon, and David, are instances quite as worthy of our meditation. But we Lave only to look back upon our own little biography, however quiet and uneventful that history may have been, to learn, that of the great body of events, very few have been at our own disposal. A higher wisdom hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of our habitation; hath ordered how we should be educated; the time of our conversion; the field of our labour; the afflictions which have entered into our discipline, and the stations which we now occupy. The picture for the last year has for its chief lights and shades, events as totally independent of our will as the eclipse or the earthquaii:e. Nor can you prognosticate the occurrences of this very day, any more certainly than the course of the #inds.
But by the way of man, we mean surely more than that chain of occurrences which strikes the senses. There is an inner life, which, though unseen, is loftier, vaster, and more eventful. The history of the man is the history of his immortal part. While men look on the panorama of sensible things, the poverty, the pleasures, the journeys, the expeditions, the wars, the disasters, the triumphs of our race; eyes are gazing upon us from the spiritual world, intent upon those great realities which escape us, in the pilgrimage of the spirit; the shade and texture of the reason; the dangers, and crosses, and wounds of the moral part; the new birth of the soul; the mysterious assaults of principalities and powers, the sublime conflict with evil; the armour the tri* umph, and the salvation. This, of a truth, is the way of man; and it is not in himself. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell vrhence it cometh, or whither it goeth. The wdiole ordering of the meim of grace is by a sovereign hand. Appalling as the thought is, the greatest change of which we can be the subjects, is beyond our reach. We may deny, murmur, and even rage; the truth is eternal: I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I wdll have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. The most placid life of the most secluded Christian is so pregnant with spiritual events, as to be a little world of itself And these events, linked in with •ternal destiny, are not of the creature’s choosing. Enter for a little while into the mysterious chambers of memory, and contemplate the shadows of departed thincrs which flit across those walls. How unforeseen — how strange! Was it your wisdom or your will which ordered that for so many years, through so great temptations, you should go on offending God, and resisting his commandments; that meanwhile you should ever and anon l)e checked and wounded by the visitation of convincing truth; fchat, at a certain moment, you should be called of (7od, and illuminated l)y his Holy Spirit; that you should hear such a preacher, or alight on such a text, or receive such an admonition; that you should god’s GUIDANCJE. 73
encounter sncli temptations, have such joys, fall into such sins, be called to such labours, and endure such sorrows; in a word, that you should be this very hour receiving, for good or c?vil, the impressions of which you are now conscious? No, my reader; ro! you feel the hand of sovereignty in all this: and such has been the case with all the people of God. How much agency, think you, had any of the three thousand Pentecostal hearers, in adjusting their several plans, and journe^s, and devotions, so as to be pricked in heart, at that moment, by the preaching of Peter 1 How much agency had Saul of Tarsus, lately an assistant in the murder of Stephen, and now hasting to Damascus to imJjrue his hands in fresh martyrdoms, in causing himself to be smitten to the earth, a repentant soul? Hov, much’ agency had the jailer of Philippi, in the events which accompanied the midnight earthquake, and the divine call which snatched him from the yawning damnation of the suicide? From whom, then, proceeded these events, if not “from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning? Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth.”
The future, with which we so vainly perplex ourselves, is perfect darkness. We know not even where our next footsteps shall be planted. Whether death or life, whether joys or temptations await us, no wisdom can disclose to us.” Plow can a mar then, understand his own way f ’
Are vve then to fold our arms, and behevx.^ ourselves to have no freedom, to lie still in the arms of an inexorable fate? By no means. Between Fate and Providence, there is just the difference which subsists between darkness and light, between chance and foresight, between an unreasoning destiny and a disposing goodness, between nonentity and God. In the truth we urge, und in all our exposition of it, while it is asserted that man does not know and cannot direct himself, it is implied that God does. A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. We are in a labyrinth indeed, but the clew is in the hand of infinite wisdom and infinite love, When we least know whither we are going, he knoweth the way that we take. When we are unable to conceive what good can result from our present distressing condition, God is using us for the very purpose for which he sent us into the world. The exyert artisan, surrounded by a thousand implements, knows precisely the use of each; he takes up one, and lays it aside; he emj)loys each in its due tine and measure, and for its right end. Just in this way does the sovereimi wisdom deal with men. And it is no more reasonable for the human soul, than for the material implement, to quai’rel with the hand that wields it. Assyria thought herself wise and prudent and successfid. But God saitn: ‘’Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith, or shall the saw magn’.fy itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself asrainst them that lift il up, or as if the staff should lift up gob’s guidance. 75
itself, as if it were no wood.” Thus even the fne actions of the most wicked man are so governed, that his way is not in himself, but in God. “For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, .that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.” And rn regard to the crowning sin of our world, the death of Jesus Christ, when Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, yveve gathered together, it was “for to do whatsoever God’s hand and counsel determined before to be done.”
But if this is true even with regard to the ungodly, how much more may we expect it to be true in regard to God’s peculiar people, whom he has called and sanctified, to show forth his glory. Feeling that their way is not in themselves, they delight in believing that they are led from above. It is the very lav, of God’s dispensations, that when his people are going they know not whither, they are in the very path which the Master has appointed. “I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.” The knowledge of this should work in us both submission and hope; submission, because God is sovereign, because he is wise, because he is just, because he is omnipotent, and because all resistance and all repim ing are fruitless and wicked; hope, because we are assured that all things worlc together for good to them that love God, being disposed according to a most gracious plan for accomplishing their perfection. What though he hath not confided to us his secrets of state? The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice! However j)erplexing may be the particular case, here is a rule which covers all. “Clouds and darkness are round about him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.” Even m times as dark as those of Habakkuk, we may say with the prophet: “Although the fig-tree shall not ])lossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut ofl:’from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” The promise is good to every faithful soul: “The Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.”
We are more ready, perhaps, to recognize this guidance of Providence under the greater than under the lighter afflictions of life. Yet the misery as well as the happiness of man is maudy the aggregate of little things. When fortune is suddenly swept away; when disease breaks the constitution; wdien death by a single stroke makes the widow and the orphan, the sufil-rer is prompt to acknowledge that it is the visitntlon of God. But we live as
GOD’S GUIDANCE. Y’/
if we would exempt from the general rule the petty annoyances of our common days; the languor which unfits for duty; the cloud that passes over the spirits; the domestic cross, the chafing of temper in trade; the slight, the unkindness, the forgetfulness which we enduie from thoughtless or selfish fellow-creatures. Yet the law is universal. Not merely the journey, but every step of the journey, is ordered. No part of our way is left to ourselves. Resignation and faith behold God in the smallest hair that falls; and the happiest life is that of him who has bound together all the affairs of life, great and small, and intrusted them to God. Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass.
The consideration of the truth, that we cannot direct our own ways, may well serve to chastise our sanguine expectations, with regard to the course of our life. It is the characteristic illusion of youth, and it varies with the temperament of the individual, but no season of life is entirely free from it. We are prone to look at the future, as if it all were within our power. We plan for earthly happiness, as if our own purpose were omnipotent. And even sore experience does not teach us that our arm reaches but a little distance; and that we are subject to a governing power, which employs us as the potter does the clay. Of the majority of the schemes and enterprises which engage the solicitude of the busy world, it may be said, they include no thought of Providence. The worldly mind, and even the
78 C0NS0T;ATI01
Christian mind under wrong influences, continues its way as if self-sufficient. “To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.” It is to rebuke such unfounded hopes that the Apostle James says, “Go to now, ye that say. To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say. If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.” Such was the joy and such the boasting of the rich man in the parable, as he surveyed the extent of his crops: “I will say to my soul. Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” But God said unto him, “Thou fool! this night shall thy soul be required of thee.” To hope, indeed, is our privilege and our duty, but our hope must be in God. Men are fond of talking about being the architects of their own fortune, and our ears are wearied with hearing of “self-made men;” but unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Hope itself becomes more secure, and energy is more constant, when they are founded on the belief that all is under the Almighty guidance. Our happiness in duty is greatest, when we feel that we are conducted through all our changes by an overruling power, which uses us for ends far above our comprehension.
GOD’S r.UID. NCE. T’i
But such is the tendency of errhig man to go from one extreme to another, that while at one moment we are inflated with idle hopes, at the next we are cast down by as idle fears. The doctrine now under consideration serves to repress our needless apprehension of coming evil. Ever attempting to pry into the future, we make to ourselves a thousand troubles which never exist but in these sickly imaginations. The foreknowledge of such as are really to befall us, would be enough to crush us; £ind God has wisely and mercifully concealed from us that which is to come. It is a line conception of our great poet, when Michael sets before Adam the future history of the world, to represent our progenitor as exclaiming in anguish:
“O visions ill foreseen! better had I
Lived ignorant of future, so had borne
My part of evil only, each day’s lot
Enough to bear.
Let no man seek
Henceforth to be foretold what shall befall
Him or his children; evil he may be sure,
Which neither his foreknowing can prevent,
And he the future evil shall no less
In apprehension than in substance feel,
Grievous to bear ‘”
But not content with forecasting those ills which shall occur, we imagine a thousand which never arrive. By such perverse musings men may press into a few days all those evils which God has mercifully parcelled out through a lifetime. And as there are innumerable trials which cause more distress in the fear than in the endurance, wo lade our selves, not only with those which shall be, but with a hundred-fold more which are the mere creatures of our apprehension. Such a temper is to be corrected, l)y considering that the way of man is not in himself All such cares are needless. They do not avail in the sliditest desree to avert or lessen the ills which come, or to strengthen us for the burden. They fill up time, and absorb thoughts and energies which should be bestowed upon the duties of the day. In this connection, how pure, heavenly and reviving are the directiois of our blessed Saviour; how infinitely above the reach of worldly philosophy; how consistent with the highest wisdom! Sendins: us for our lesson to the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, he says: ‘’ Take therefore no thouo’ht for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thousrht for the thino’^s of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” We shall be wiser, holier, and happier, if we resign ourselves and all our affaii’s to the disposition of divine Providence; assured that he who loves us better than we love ourselves, will lay nothing upon us which is not for our good. Let not a thought of chance intrude, even in respect to the smallest concerns. “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”
If then we may use this doctrine to correct at once our unreasonable hopes and our unreasoi?
able fears, we may also derive from it the habit of conducting om whole life with a reference to the leadings of Providence. Since it is not in man to direct his steps, let him seek the direction of God. And this direction is twofold; that of providential indications, and that of revealed duty. We are not Left without signs in the course of events concerning us, which serve to show where our path lies. The traveller may not be able to see very far before him; but when he has made one cautious step, he is generally permitted to see where the next should be placed. Even in the night of storm, this direction is sometimes afforded by the very lightning which alarms him. We must not mistake our own wishes and fears, our likes and dislikes, our worldly ease and interest for the leadings of Providence; but we may with justice examine every proposed step, with reference to our character, talents, age, station, and circumstances.
But still more important is it to regard the path of duty as the path of Providence. The revelation of God’s will in the Scriptures is our pillar of cloud and of fire. When we go where this directs, we cannot but go aright. “This is the way, walk ye in it.” “The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
If instead of so often asking what is agreeable, or tending to worldly happiness, we were constantly to ask what is duty, we should attain greater holiness, greater usefulness, and greater peace of mind. Our greatest glory is conformity to the will of God. As our ways are not our own, we must eventually bow to that will, wlietlier willingly or unwillingly However, therefore, a temporary departure from duty may seem to promise good, we may rest upon it, as the immutable truth of God, that “wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness.”
Let me now inquire, is it not in the highest deo:ree encouramuG: to be thus assured, that dark as the future is, in regard to our apprehensions, it is not in the minutest particular uncertain in the mind of God? His eye discerns our whole path, even to the end; nay, his hand has marked it out. After our greatest efforts, and in spite of our greatest resistance, we do but float upon the mighty stream of his Providence. All that is past, and all that is to come, including every action, suffering, sentiment, and thought, all is carried forward by him to a consummation as beatific for us as it is glorious for our Maker.
Let me say, in recapitulation; we have found it involved in our doctrine, that our present life is a state of discipline, in which we know not the end for which God is fitting us, nor our own need of such and such particular trials; that being ignorant of the end, we must needs be ignorant of the way; that we know not what to choose or what to refuse, if events were left to our option; that even in cases where we have such knowledge, we have little power to accomplish what we may choose; that the gob’s GUIDAIS^CE. 83
events on wMcli our W’liole life, especially our spiritual life, turns, aie Ijeyond our control; and that the future, with all its contingencies, is entirely hidden from us. But we have seen, on the other hand, that if man cannot direct his own ways, they are directed by God; from which we have derived these practical lessons: to be submissive under trials, to moderate our hopes, to repress our fears, and to follow the leadings of Providence.
It seems a proper conclusion to this essay to add, that in a future state, we have reason to believe, the children of God will be admitted to see the wisdom and the mercy of all the way by which God has led them. What our Saviour said to Peter may, perhaps, in a certain sense, be said to every believer: “What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know, hereafter.” It is not too much to think, that when God shall have made up all his jewels, and the number of the elect shall be complete, he will make it a part of their happiness to look back from the height of heaven upon all their winding track, and to see that every step has been ordered in infinite love; that their sorest trials have been merciful; that their freest choices have been links in God’s chain of purpose; that their very sins have been overruled for good. And if this shall appear amazing in the history of an Individual, how shall it shine resj)leDdent in the nations of them that are saved, when ten thousand times ten thousand interminghng and entangled lives shall visibly accord with one infinite plan, and
84 CO^^SOLATION.
centre m one sovereign purpose! The great end of Creation and Pl’ovidencf3 and Grace is God’s own glory. This will be made manifest at the grand consummation. But in nothing will this more .sbine than when it shall ap2:)ear that the voluntary, and even the wicked acts of innumerable creatures, all concur in the accomplishment of God’s purposes; and that in proportion as man’s way has not been in himself, in the same proportion has the magnificent plan been carried to completion.
Til ere s a wonderful display of wisdom and power in material nature; and if we regard each star, even in the milky way, as the centre of a system, we are overwhelmed with the consideration of so many orbs, all moving agreeably to a unifoi’in law, and circling their respective courses for ages without confusion. Yet still more astonishing, and still more glorious will it be, when at the last it shall appear, that of the millions of redeemed souls, each has been the free originator of thoughts and vohtions; that these have flowed from each in a perpetual stream; that they have conflicted with one another, and conflicted with the preceptive will of God; that, nevertheless, all have contributed to the hapj)iness of the saved world, and the glory of the Almighty. Then shall be heard the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb: “Great and marvellous are thy works. Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints”